Fracturing operations can be in a bottom up orientation where progressively larger balls sequentially land on bigger seats to isolate zones already fractured so that the next zone uphole can be fractured. The procedure is repeated until all the zones are fractured. The balls can either be lifted to the surface with subsequent production from all zones or the balls can also be removed by blowing them through seats or drilling them out so that production can take place from the desired zones. Frequently wellbore intervention is needed to close sliding sleeve valves if production is needed only from select zones. Other techniques using sliding sleeve valves combines actuation to open with a ball landed on a seat and subsequent closure of the sliding sleeve with well intervention using a shifting tool. This method is illustrated in WO2014/094136. In US 2014/0345876 the same open and close technique using well intervention to close the fracturing port is illustrated.
Unique profiles are used in tandem with a hydraulic tool to operate a variety of tools in a single trip using unique flow signaling as described in US 2010/0089587. In other designs darts with unique latch profiles are deployed on a rod with multiple sensors to be released to latch with matching profiles on sleeves for well stimulation as described in US2012/0048570. In U.S. Pat. No. 8,757,265 a plurality of subterranean tools can be operated with balls that emit an RFID signal to operate the tools in a desired order when a unique signal operates a unique tool so that the associated actuator for the tool is signaled to operate in response to the unique RFID signal associated with the dropped ball.
What is needed and provided by the present invention is a way to fracture zones in any desired sequence without well intervention. The method is accomplished with sliding sleeve valves with unique profiles to accept darts with matching profiles. A selected valve gets a predetermined dart with a matching profile to allow subsequent pressure buildup to shift the sleeve to the ports open position. After the well treating job through the opened ports is completed a second dart lands on the first dart to effectively closed the open ports to allow a second pressure buildup on the sleeve to shift the sleeve so that the ports are then closed. Thereafter both darts are blown through the sleeve to hole bottom. At this point any other sleeve can be addressed by a conforming profile on another dart pumped into the borehole and the process repeats. After the treatment is over selected sleeves can be moved to a full open, screened open or choke position with wellbore intervention such as a shifting tool, pumping another dart, or in other ways. The method allows a random order of treatment of multiple zones without well intervention.
These and other advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following description and drawings. Those skilled in the art will further appreciate other aspects of the invention from a review of the detailed description of the preferred embodiment and the associated drawings while understanding that the full scope of the invention can be determined by the appended claims.